tamaranth | Film notes: Hero

Saw Hero last night. I did enjoy it, and it was beautifully-shot. Beautiful people, in beautiful places, doing beautiful things (without visible wires and yet very definitely human, not CGI), and a plot that unfolded like one of those paper fortune-tellers I used to make at school. Colour-coded, too, in a way that I can't imagine working in a less visually choreographed film. (Having said this, there were places where I was reminded of The Lord of the Rings -- not because it does the colour-thing this well or to this extent, but because there's a glimmer of the same aesthetic).

But it didn't engage me. I don't know if that's a cultural thing (the whole impassive-warrior icon gives much less to get one's emotions into) or something to do with the pace of the story; or just that I have become accustomed to a certain ~~swashbuckling~~ dramatickal bravado in my movie-watching, lately.

Favourite scenes: the sword-fight in the rain (and in the head); the blue library; the autumn grove; that swarm of arrows.

Distracted by clashing shades of the same colour -- but perhaps this is cultural, too.